There were some very closely fought games this week with ten of the sixteen being won by less than 10 points – five of those by just a 2 point margin. Ross’s Champions continue their progress by knocking out the reigning champs, Puddle Splash Van – we’re yet to have a manager retain the cup. Shoelace were knocked out in the tie of the round on 82 points – only five teams scored more points than that in the entire league this gameweek.

Top of the League – But Da Pitch Ain’t 1 – Trev Reams – 1666 points

The last two weeks have produced a bit of a change at the top. It’s still the same four teams, but the order has changed and the points spread has widened. And the teams in the chasing pack are also within shooting distance. Da Pitch have posted two 90+ scores to leap back into the top 5k in the world and build a lead of 32 points over The Craggy Islanders, who occupy their highest position of the season. Neil Madrid have dropped back after two shocking weeks of bad captain choices and a risky hokey-cokey transfer policy.

Pique’s match Da Pitch for points and goals this week but triumphed in the meaningless quest to be manager of the week by virtue of picking up more bonus points. It’s a score that puts them in contention for a charge at the manager of the month prize. Eight goals scored and four players collecting top bonus is a great return. Some teams will welcome the two week cup break. It might have come at the wrong time for Pique’s.

Player of the week – Raheem Sterling – Manchester City – 18 points

Pipping his hat trick scoring team mate by one point, despite scoring one less goal and one less bonus point. No less annoying for those that saw fit to dispense of City players with the prospect of what should have been a much tougher match against Chelsea and the fact they have a blank coming up next time out. City have refound their form (again) and Sterling becomes the first player to achieve a player of the week award twice this season. It’s the seventh player award for their team overall. Will they have another blip to throw the game into complete disarray again?

Bargain of the week – Chris Wood – Burnley – 13 points

Burnley look OK now. Wood and his team mate, Ashley Barnes, are in among the form strikers and look like a tempting pick for the forthcoming blank. They have five and four goals respectively in the last seven games. It’s a run that has seen them climb to relative safety in the league and they look set to continue the partnership for the foreseeable.

Twat of the week – Marcos Alonso – Chelsea – -1 points

Take your pick of the Chelsea defence. If Alonso is still stinking up your backline it’s surely now time to dispense. Worse still if you re-invested in Chelsea after they beat Huddersfield. Remember they were thumped for four by Bournemouth in the game before. The top four look so much more reliable for big priced players at the moment. Hazard could quite easily go on another six week holiday before his next big haul.

From what I can see only two of us handed Mohamed Salah the armband this week. Caligula were the highest placed, now in 7th, and our highest scorers. Plenty of other teams had him but didn’t captain him, largely favouring Kane, who didn’t even start against Leicester. Lots of other teams don’t have him, having probably ousted him in recent weeks to buy Kane – or maybe Raheem Sterling. Caligula’s other 38 points were kind of cobbled together by a couple of clean sheets and just two more goals scored in another week where rotation caused mild panic and the need for a strong bench.

Player of the week – Mohamed Salah – Liverpool – 21 points

It’s all about him this week. And it’s a massive headache for those that don’t have him. How many teams in that 35% are ghost teams? Teams that picked him and maybe even set him as captain from week one but haven’t bothered playing the game. I wouldn’t be fooled by that figure. More managers have transferred him out rather than in over the course of this season. Just in the last three weeks nearly 100,000 managers have rejected him, probably to afford Sterling or Kane. This is the kind of gameweek that makes those decisions look awfully dumb. He’s now top of the scoring charts – somehow?! Liverpool’s strength so far this season has been keeping clean sheets as opposed to running riot at the other end of the park. Salah’s scoring rate appears fairly similar to that of last season too. Explosive bouts of scoring weren’t his thing. It was consistent high single figure to low double figure scoring. There were rare blanks but also hardly any bonus. Check out his bonus scores for this season – just 5 points. That’s less that Huddersfield’s Chris Löwe. The answer is to lose one of your heavy hitters if you have more faith in Salah, make six transfers to squeeze him in around a team full of dross or just leave it as it is and hope for the best.

Bargain of the week – James Tarkowski – Burnley – 14 points

All of the Burnley back line were capable of these type of scores all the way through last season. They perfected the ability to chip in with the odd goal or assist while keeping a clean sheet and winning 1-0. Not so much this season. Joe Hart sits top of the saves table which tells you a great deal about the holes in their defence. Their immediate fixtures aren’t great, so this may turn out to be more of a one off rather than a corner turned.

Twat of the week – DeAndre Yedlin – Newcastle United – -3 points

Newcastle’s defence are even less popular than Burnley’s, despite being amid a decent run of fixtures and being more than capable of frustrating more attacking teams. Dodgy refereeing and last minute winners didn’t help their cause on Sunday, although neither did Yedlin deciding to rugby tackle Diogo Jota when clean through on goal.

BDPA1 and Perfidious Albion continue their nip and tuck battle at the top of the table. Albion earned more points this week to snatch the overall lead back, but it wasn’t quite enough to claim the September monthly prize. Only four points separate the two teams at the top and both find themselves in the top 6,000 worldwide. I’m not sure we’ve had two better starters. Third place are almost 40 more points back. Despite that, we’re doing better as a league as a whole. Last season at this stage twelve teams had passed the 400 point stage. This season twenty teams have passed that mark. This season’s top 10 are all 30+ points better off than last season’s equivalent teams.

Serial prize botherers and winners of this season’s best team name, if such a thing existed, Thelma And Luiz (Thelma is presumably Gary Cahill’s real name), are this week’s highest climbers and posters of the most impressive wildcard total to date. After making a squillion changes, their near century total came about by dispensing of the services of the price tumbling Salah and Mendy among others and bringing in double figure scoring form horses Matt Doherty, Harry Kane, Johann Berg Gudmunsson and Raheem Sterling. They’ve achieved a top 2,000 worldwide weekly score and rose almost 700,000 places overall – that’s 15 places in Bucketsworld.

Player of the week – Harry Maguire – Leicester City – 18 points

We’ve a couple of whipping boy teams developing. Cardiff, Huddersfield and Newcastle were all on the receiving end of yet another defeat, all conceding two. Newcastle allowed Harry Maguire a clean sweep – goal, assist, clean sheet and top bonus…

Bargain of the week – Johann Berg Gudmunsson – Burnley – 13 points

…while Cardiff almost afforded the same luxury to Johann Berg Gudmunsson. They scored a goal to deprive him of the clean sheet point. He moves onto four assists for the season, becoming the highest assisting midfielder in the game as Burnley’s season continues on it’s now upward trajectory.

Twat of the week – Victor Lindelof – Manchester United – -2 points

Most of the players don’t like the manager and the manager doesn’t like most of the players. And the ones he’s left with are shit at fantasy league.

Da battle for supremacy between Da Pitch and Perfidious continues with both cruising past da 400 point mark way ahead of anyone else, but it’s da former who have a slender one point advantage after outscoring their rivals this gameweek. Both sit in the top 10,000 overall and both lead the way in the battle for the September manager of the month.

However, both have wildcarded, as have Slabhead. Could someone from further back steal ahead and claim the September prize?

Manager of the week – Jaime Nash – Nashton Villa – 79 points

A welcome change in fortunes for last season’s runner up who has jumped almost a million places in the overall game. Disappointingly it only equates to three Buckets positions, but it’s a step in the right direction after having spent the opening weeks struggling to get over average scores and gaining no real boost from an early wildcard in gameweek 3. Villa took an 8 point hit for transfers and two of the three new boys returned 9 points – Joe Hart and James Maddison. Goals from Salah (c), Kane and Aguero, and clean sheets and bonuses from double-barreled full backs topped the total up nicely.

Player of the week – Joel Matip – Liverpool – 15 points

It wasn’t Ryan Fraser, the most transferred in player. He continued that curse by winding up on the end of a 4-0 thumping at the hands of the league’s bottom club. Thanks Ryan. After a few near misses a Liverpool player has finally found their place on the honours board. Matip completed a near clean sweep of defensive points. He was only missing the assist. And you can bag him for less than £5 million.

Bargain of the week – Ashley Barnes – Burnley – 12 points

Burnley finally have a win on the board and a second clean sheet to add to the one they picked up in gameweek 1. Their season appears to have started now the international break has passed and their European adventure has come to a premature end. A lot of their players suffered price drops through those opening weeks, Barnes being one of them. If their season is going to pick up, maybe he and one or two others will come on to our radar. It was his scoring prowess off the bench last season that eventually earned him more starts and he became a useful third striker to own.

Twat of the week – Wesley Hoedt – Southampton – -1 points

It probably should be a Cardiff player who are now shipping goals as we expected them to – four last week and five in this. Wesley Hoedt decided he’d score an own goal in a 3-0 defeat, which doesn’t do much for your fantasy cred.

Holding off a strong challenge from Penshaw Performers, Perfidious Albion claim the August prize, courtesy of scoring thirteen goals to their rivals’ eleven over the course of the month. The Performers jumped from 18th place to almost pip the Albion, who limped home as the third worst scoring team in the league this week. The Performers ignored Richarlison, unlike everybody else, and scored a massive 46 points with their defensive picks. Albion had benefited from Richarlison’s first two gameweeks and the three goals and five bonus points that had convinced the whole world to bring him in to their teams. The 102 point first week score was the perfect start and was the key to them holding on to win the monthly money.

Manager of the week – Cookie FC – Peter Cook – 83 points

Unluckily for Penshaw they don’t get a weekly winner nod either. They scored the same amount of points as Cookie FC, but again lose out on goals scored. Cookie scored six to Penshaw’s three, as well as also turning in a sound defenseive performance, racking up 40 points from their back five.

Player of the week – Aleksandar Mitrovic – Fulham – 16 points

Fulham were the go-to team of the week and their four goal performance may change a lot of manager’s minds. Most of Fulham’s attacking regulars had begun to see price drops, including goal of the week man, Jean Michael Seri. Mitrovic remained a popular choice and will no doubt attract more buyers following this brace. His performance has seen a price rise and put him at the top of the strikers’ points charts.

Bargain of the week – Luciano Vietto – Fulham – 9 points

Fulham made six changes for the Burnley game, with Vietto surprisingly starting in place of Ryan Sessegnon. The on loan striker justified his pick with assists for both of Mitrovic’s goals. Burnley seem to be finding the Europa League and Thursday/Sunday schedule a tough slog at the moment. They play one Saturday game in the whole of the first two months of the season. And that’ll probably change if they qualify.

Twat of the week – Richarlison – Everton – -2 points

Here he is. The Wan Bissaka sending off was tolerable. He was only £4 million. It was hardly a stress getting him into your team and he’s only banned for one match. But this prick…! I’m so glad I changed my mind at the last minute. Click on any random Bucketeer – four out of five will have him sat there, in the middle of the pitch, with his big red triangle. All for kissing Adam Smith. Seems a bit harsh. But no sooner are we feeling all smug and upbeat about reaping the rewards than we’re wondering why we never looked to the other side of the Everton attack and plumped for Theo Walcott.